Summary

This story begins as a letter to Ms. Plath from a dolphin “try[ing] to get the story of my death out of the way” (203). The dolphin references the other stores in Only The Animals, saying, “the other animals who have told their stories here are not as burdened by foolhardy attempts at cross-species communications” (203), saying that humans and dolphins have a long history of communication. The dolphin says that initially, she did not want to tell her story, but decided to speak only if her “thoughts of [a writer could] infuse whatever I decided to stay” (204).

The dolphin then explains how she read the poetry of Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath’s husband, saying he wanted to “justify the animal in the human” (204). She confesses that both men and dolphins “tend to weave a web...